City restaurant M Threadneedle Street has announced its latest dinner in support for human trafficking charity Not for Sale, at which Sir Mo Farah will speak of his own harrowing experiences.
The M is Not for Sale gala dinner on November 1 at the group’s restaurant in Bank, is the fifth of its kind hosted by M Restaurants. The series has so far raised more than £350,000 for the global charity, which provides vital resources to trafficked people, and helps to fight modern day slavery and exploitation.
Guests will enjoy a four-course dinner prepared by M’s culinary director Mike Reid, who recently appeared as a judge on Channel 4’s Five Star Kitchen. Reid is also known down under as the co-host of Australian cooking series’ My Market Kitchen and Ten Minute Kitchen.
The menu, which thanks to Enotria Wines will be matched with wines from around the world, will be made available to the public from next week. Tickets will be £150.
M owner Martin Williams told the Standard that he had witnessed the impact the funds raised had made in previous years.
He said: “Having visited the projects we have invested in in Peru, and having seen the direct impact people dining on our ‘M is Not for Sale’ menu has had on indigenous tribes in the Amazon — who were previously in danger of being enslaved by illegal loggers and miners — this is not just an incredible Peruvian menu, but a way of making a small but emphatic change to lives and society.”
In association with the Sporting Club, Farah will join as special guest and speak about being trafficked as a child, which he first revealed to the public in his 2022 BBC documentary The Real Mo Farah. Originally named Hussein Abdi Kahin, Farah was illegally trafficked from his home town in Somalia via Djibouti to Britain at the age of nine, under the name of another child. He was then forced to work in London as a domestic servant.
He adopted the name Mo Farah as his own thereafter and went on to achieve sporting greatness. Today, he is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history, with 10 global championship gold medals.
Not For Sale founder David Batsone will join Farah in speaking at the event to present an update on the impact of the reforestation projects Not For Sale has funded in Peru.
The schemes have taken indigenous villagers out of danger of being enslaved and aimed to empower them to be both entrepreneurial and self-sustaining.
Through the month of November, 20 guests a day to M Threadneedle Street will also have the opportunity to order the same four-course menu served at the gala.
